Though it´s quite complex, this scaled wyvern is one of my earlier designs. In fact this is my second model with scales. While some of the most famous models in origami are dragons eg. Satoshi Kamiya´s Ryu jin, there less wyverns (dragons without forelegs) and even less scaled wyverns. That´s why I wanted my first “big” origami dragon to be a scaled wyvern.
Designing this model went surprisingly well. After deciding on the proportions of my scaled wyvern, I found a layout, that fitted nicely into the paper quite early: the wings and the legs are made from the corners, the head and the tail come from the sides of the paper. The scales for the neck and the tail are located in the middle of the paper, the scales for the body, wings and legs are on the sides. Some parts of the model would be colour changed leaving some tricky but doable transition units hidden inside the neck. The rest of the model is surprisingly easy (for a super complex model 🙂 ) using “just” boxpleating.
By the time I designed this wyvern, I didn´t know much about drawing apps like Oripa or Orihime. That´s why I drew the original crease pattern on paper. By now, I have made a digital version of the crease pattern.
This scaled wyvern has a symmetric crease pattern using boxpleating on a 72 x 72 grid (with partial 36ths and partial 144ths for the scales) .
Overall it took me more than a year to fold (including a break of a month ). Most of that time, I made the scales, one row per day. For the folding I used a square of Kraft paper, with a size of 1m x 1m. The finished scaled wyvern is 38cm long and has a wingspan of 35cm.
